


Return, Reuinion, Farewell

by GammaCavy



Category: Chronicles of Elantra - Michelle Sagara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:28:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5469872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GammaCavy/pseuds/GammaCavy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He promised to save the city and return, and the creature known as Gilbert Rayelle always keeps his promises to Kattea. <br/>The very end of Cast in honor, from Gilbert's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Return, Reuinion, Farewell

When he condenses a form from the inversion he does not know what to expect. He does not have to invert himself to see Kattea, but he knows that if she could not see him, she will be unhappy.

He cannot stand to see her cry.

The _gardia_ wishes to confine him. He is unsurprised by this. As Kattea and the Chosen approach, he recalls for a moment the feeling of what the Chosen had done for him. It was not easy to reproduce that state, but he has tried to limit the damage his presence here will cause.

And he has no wish to see Kattea fade away.

Maintaining the form becomes more difficult as Kattea draws near. But after healing the breach in the way he did he has a new understanding of _difficult_ , and manages to conceal the rest of himself round and within the confinement and the form he adapts.

He has no desire for her to fear him.

He knows that he should destroy her. Remove the instability, before uncontrolled loss of cohesion crates a larger instability. But he can not. While he retains his mind, he will not.

She has chosen him.

She chose him. He finds he does not understand why, but fears to ask. If she thought on it, would she come to another decision?

He will do as the Chosen said. He must. In part this is because of the debt he owes her, for her aid in maintaining attention in this layer of the world and giving to him the word that held a bond with this time, but her threat is his desire.

Kattea. Safe. Happy. It will be so.

He knows fear when she is gifted with an echo of his perception, fear at what she will see in him. All who exist within time fear those like him. But she has seen edges of him before, and been unafraid.

That remains the truth.

He carries her with the form he has adapted for the purpose, and she is more precious now that ever before. He did not think that possible. . He will bring her away, and she will not fade. There will be no loss of cohesion.

He gives the Chosen his thanks, and shifts the part of himself that he had concealed, letting himself grasp and hold her with perceptions he has denied himself. Lord Nightshade warned him what mortals found fearsome about his kind, and he has tried to adhere to those boundaries in dealing with them.

She is still unafraid, even as he begins to shift her and some of himself into another layer, allowing the form he has used to dissipate. He does not need it anymore.

He takes her home to keep forever.


End file.
